My oh my! Top play of the week for the Seattle Mariners: (Video)

With the short week last week, I didn’t have too many choices for top plays of the week, but I think the video I selected is a special one.

Ichiro Suzuki, Japan’s native son, singles for his first hit of the season, and first of four on the day against the Oakland A’s at the Tokyo Dome in Japan.

With his first plate appearance of the new season, and playing in his home land of Japan, Ichiro Suzuki stepped up to the plate with a crowd noise of game seven of the world series.

With camera flashes going off all around the stadium, Ichiro took his familiar warm up swing and toed the back line of the batters box.

With a slap of his bat, Ichiro puts the ball in play

The first pitch was a little inside, and this was met with a few boos from the crowd.

This didn’t phase the stoic Ichiro one bit, and back to the batters box he went. Once again that familiar warm up swing, bat pointed to the gods, and with a pull of his right sleeve, Ichiro was ready to go again.

With a slap of his bat, Ichiro puts the ball in play

On the second pitch, Ichiro saw something that he liked, and with his signature slap swing, put the ball in play on a slow looping hopper toward the short stop, and sped towards first.

The ball was hit so slow, that even with the infield drawn in, there was no chance of a play at first. The A’s short stop was only about 20 feet to first base when he came up with the ball, but by that time Ichiro had already reached base safely.

This is exactly the type of hit that Ichiro has made a career of, and made many a defense look foolish at the same time.

Though after his 4-5 outing in game one, Ichiro went 0-4 the next night.

Hopefully we will see a lot more of the 4-5 Ichiro in the final two games of this series in Oakland this weekend.

© Clinton Bell for North West Sports Beat, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |

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